@Gil75 Hi,
Thank you very much for the nice post and detailed explanation!
The most problematic parts of the playback template are the Divisi and Double, Triple, Quadruple Stops (chords) and what is the best way to approach them, especially the chords which could be performed in legato (double and many triple stops). The BBC SO Legato articulations are monophonic, so the playback of simultaneous intervals isn’t possible. We are still waiting for @John_at_Steinberg to help with this situation by giving us some tips and tricks on how to make them work with as less as possible workarounds.
Something came to my mind… to create an Expression Map which triggers the same KeySwitch for Legato articulation in two, or three patches, but unfortunately the expression map cannot be routed into multiple channels in order to trigger simultaneously multiple monophonic Legato articulations. Would be nice if the Expression Maps gives ability for multi-channel routing!
Another thing is also needed… more control over every technique withing multiple techniques expression maps:
Option decide which one of them Enable, or Disable
Example: Legato+Multiple Stops - I already have Legato assigned to a monophonic legato articulation, so in this two component expression I would like to preserve the slur extension of the notes and to disable the playback of assigned Legato articulation.
Option to give custom priorities.
I will post a feature improvement request for the Expression Maps.
Hello @John_at_Steinberg,
I hope you are doing well and everything’s fine there!
I have question about the current BBC SO Pro Template. What was the reason the CC 11 (Expression) to be selected and activated as secondary dynamic, alongside with CC 1 (ModWheel), or Velocity?
The library was created to sound relatively balanced, and seems to me, that when CC 11 is involved it sounds a bit unbalanced, especially for the patches where CC 1 responsible for the dynamics.
Hello @Thurisaz
I think the reason was that velocity based articulations (shorts) and ModWheel based articulations are not really well balanced. A staccato with Velocity=20 is not really compatible to a long with CC1 = 20 .
The only way I could solve that was sseparation shorts and longs to different Instances/Midi Channels, so that there are no automation jumps and I can control the perceived loudness in the VEP mixer.
But this resulted in many many VEP instances with still the drawback of having no RACK Instruments in Dorico where to place a VEP holder instance.
I only saw this post because of the new reply but as it seems John has yet to answer, I will try to do so. If you read the Spitfire documentation, it is clear that CC1 and CC11 correspond to the timbre and volume respectively and you are expected to use both together. Sometimes you may want more actual volume with the same timbre and sometimes a more forceful timbre – in other words the next velocity crossfade layer – but not necessarily a change in overall volume.
If you find John’s results unbalanced then you can easily adjust the scaling within the primary and secondary controllers both in terms of overall range and with respect to each other. I’ve yet to come across a library where the patches are all correct in terms of dynamic balancing within the instrument and between instruments. When velocity is used as in shorter notes for the primary controller, I’d accept @oldmacilli 's point that it is not always very well correlated with the CC1 using longer patches.
In the meantime, you may have come to realise all this of course!
Dear Gil,
Your post is gorgeous! You actually convinced me to buy VE and man, am I happy! Without this post, buying VEP would have just been another of my typical investments just sitting on my Mac unused, lacking the confidence and the courage to find things out and set things up. Now thanks to you, a whole army of BBC SO Pro musicians AND Vienna Synchron musicians are joining my projects, goodbye Noteperformer at last. Million thanks!
Hello Bertram,
is it possible to share your Template for BBC SO and Vepro 7? I’m a newbie in working with Vepro (since the last black friday it found his way to me ) an BBC Pro on my Mac Mini 2018 in combination with Dorico 4 is - let’s say “suboptimal” .
Best
Ulhati
I’m sorry, I’ve been very busy with something else entirely.
I no longer use VePro. Dorico and my PC have become so powerful that I can do without “VepPro”. That saves some problems.
greeting
Bertram
Interesting, I’m running a 24 core top drawer HEDT processor, 128GB RAM and NVMe, and Dorico loading a full BBCSO project is slow - and there’s no way to get around that as it’s disk bound. Used to be that navigating the score in Dorico was slow with a full loaded template, it would pause before just moving the cursor - but maybe that’s changed now. If so then I could see being fine with loading a full project, as long as you don’t mind waiting in the beginning.
I still use VEPro due to that loading lag, it also guarantees that I’ve got a consistent orchestra set up with articulations. I might try loading a Dorico full orchestra project again, maybe that’s been improved where there’s no hesitation now - did something improve with that?
Of course, I don’t use a complete BBCSO orchestra with all articulations in Dorico. I only load presets for actual instruments with few actual articulations. However, e.g. a classic “Beethoven Orchestra” is not a problem for me and loads quickly.
My standard template only has legato, long and staccato, otherwise I activate towards the end if necessary.
Edit: By the way: my libraries are on an internal M-2 SSD.
) an BBC Pro on my Mac Mini 2018 in combination with Dorico 4 is - let’s say “suboptimal” 
.